You’re driving down I-44 about an hour south of St. Louis. You glance at another dead opossum by the side of the road.
Look again. These days that possum is very likely to be an armadillo.
The armadillo population in Missouri has exploded in the last twenty or so years, to the point where the Conservation Department published an article in The Conservationist last November about living with these pesky creatures. ‘Pesky’ not because they are dangerous, but because in their constant quest for insects and grubs, they dig up whole lawns and golf courses. Consuming more than half a pound of insects per day, a single armadillo can do a whole lot of digging. In southern Missouri, sometimes a newly sodded lawn seems like an invitation for the armadillos to ‘come and get it—the digging is easy.’
Armadillos have been steadily dispersing northward since they first crossed the Rio Grande into Texas in the 1850’s. Relatives of anteaters and sloths, they are native to South America, which is still the home of most species. But the armadillo we know, the nine-banded armadillo, has been able to expand its habitat as far north as the Missouri River (and perhaps even beyond.)
Read the entire article (100KB PDF).
This article was originally published in the St. Louis Beacon.
“Every time there’s a food scare, it’s like a billboard advertising local food,” says Andy Ayers, owner emeritus of Riddles Penultimate Cafe and Wine Bar in the U. City Loop.
The 1002d use for duct tape? Tape the bottom of your pants to the top of your hiking boots to keep ticks from crawling up your legs.
During your next eye exam, your doctor may show you a little viewing box connected to a computer and ask if you want to take a test that might give your risk for developing macular degeneration. The test, called “Heterochromatic Flicker Photometry,” measures the depth of a layer of pigments that cover the macula—the area of the retina where most of your focused vision takes place. And evidence is accumulating that a healthy pigment layer is associated with a decreased likelihood of age-related macular degeneration.